July/August 2015 Issue

News Features

People are different--that's not news to anyone. However, content creators and marketers may be surprised by how these individual differences affect search queries. A recent Blue Nile Research study, "Psychology of the Searcher," observed people as they searched for information online and found some significant differences between what people search for and how sites create content.

In early May, an important milestone was reached that signals a sea change in how consumers prefer to access their favorite content: Among Comcast customers, the number of internet subscribers surpassed cable TV subscribers for the first time. Granted, the majority of that bandwidth is not being used to post to Facebook or shop on Amazon. It's predominantly the pipeline for streaming video. Consider that, globally, IP video traffic will comprise 79% of all consumer internet traffic in 2018, up from 66% in 2013, per Cisco.

Featured Stories

It is almost a truism that marketing has become highly technology-intensive. A nearly ubiquitous component of any marketing technology portfolio is email marketing. In fact, there is a high probability your company is already using some form of it, even though you might not be aware of it. A related component is marketing automation. Customers often talk of these in the same breath. In this article, we will look at this distinction in some detail and also summarize what marketers should know when evaluating these technologies.

Email marketing is still a staple of any digital marketer's repertoire, but the technology has become much more sophisticated-and so have your consumers. In this cluttered environment, understanding how to best target and connect with your audience as well as compel them to action is critical. For those in the know, email marketing is far from being a dying breed, despite the proliferation of other online and mobile options.

Web publishers are getting more creative in finding ways to keep visitors on their sites for longer periods and to retain the people who come from social media sites. Infinite scrolling is a fairly new and increasingly popular way of making website users more "sticky" by providing a passively loaded, never-ending stream of content. Is pagination yesterday's news?

Columns

If you're not overwhelmed by the exploding marketing technology marketplace, you're not paying attention. By Chiefmartec.com's count, there are now more than 1,800 vendors competing in a sector that barely existed 5 years ago. Indeed, you've probably been contacted by one of their sales reps in the past week to learn more about the promises of his company's solution. Here's what you need to know to manage a successful marketing technology strategy.

It's a strange time for journalism. We have more outlets than ever before. Mobile, social, and cloud tools have transformed the craft--and the business-letting us reach more people than ever before. We can have two-way conversations with our readers. We even know our audience at a granular level.

For a long time, I have argued that online users have a sense memory for publishers that abuse their attention. I think we reserve a special bit of grey matter for the sites that give us trouble. On some level, we recall that site X loads slowly because ad or design bloat drags down its page loads. We record somewhere in our brains that site Y is too reliant on intrusive pop-ups and full-page interstitials. Without a whiff of proof beyond my own surfing experience, I contend that many of us curtail our use of these sites, even if it is by a couple of visits a month or a few video clips not launched. Sites do an immeasurable level of damage to themselves by stretching the bounds of visitor tolerance.

Faces of EContent

As a digital marketing strategist for gShift, an SaaS company that provides clients with analytical insights on their overall web presence, Logan Miller works with "upward of a dozen" clients on content creation, social media strategies, and SEO strategies. "Managing social media for clients is a lot of fun," he says. "I'm constantly checking in on different accounts, engaging with audiences, monitoring competition, and creating content."

Case Studies

With non-U.S. use of AccuWeather's digital offerings dramatically increasing in recent years, the company wanted to find a way to better translate and localize its weather forecasts to meet the needs of the wide variety of languages, in which its offerings are accessed every day.